Not that NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre said there should be an armed guard outside every classroom. That's an interpretation imposed by Christie for the purpose of rejecting the proposal. Christie conceded that he didn't "know the totality of the proposal," but he seemed to think that "from a law enforcement perspective," you’d have to have an armed guard outside every classroom since schools have so many doors. But isn't that like saying there's no point having police officers on the street unless there can be one on every corner? Wouldn't an armed guard somewhere in the school be able to rush to the scene of a disturbance anywhere in the school within a few seconds? That would be better than waiting for the police, wouldn't it? And consider the deterrent value. A school with an armed guard wouldn't seem like such an obvious soft target, and that might make all the difference to the sort of coward who would murder children.

Christie says: "You don’t want to make this an armed camp for kids. I don’t think that’s a positive example for children. We should be able to figure out some other ways to enhance safety it seems to me. I think that’s the easy way out."

Okay, what are the other ways? It's good to be open to other ways, but, ironically, Christie only perceives one way to implement the NRA proposal. He sees the school looking like an "armed camp" with a guard displaying a gun at every door. That's the easy way to dismiss the NRA proposal. Why not consider positive ways to bring armed security into the school — at least before rejecting the idea? Claiming you're resisting the "easy way" when you refuse to do that is pure sophistry.

116 comments:

THis is a desperate response by the NE states. Many if not all urban schools already have metal detectors and security. It's the suburban schools that are wide open. More important is the attitude of self responsibility. Here in CT we have bears all around our wealthy suburb, a can of bear spray in the school receptionists desk would have disabled most any attacker almost as well as a firearm. If people cannot bring themselves to have armed defense, how about secure doors and non-lethal (pepper spray, tasters) defense?

A better approach for the NRA would be to offer free training to teachers and school personnel and for states to offer carry permits to those teachers and school personnel who requested them. Not mandatory. But make it clear to potential murderers that schools are no longer gun-free safe-for-the-shooter zones.

But really, there are no easy answers. Not every problem has a neat solution. Crazy, evil murderers, who are quite willing to include themselves, are difficult to prevent.

My kids go to school at an in-demand district on the outskirts of our medium-sized city. Students from the city district can transfer in, but they have to pay a fee of about a grand per kid per year to do so. Our district has worked out a deal with the city police department under which an officer can work one day a month, which comes out of his leave time, in uniform and fully armed at one of the campuses in the district in order to have the transfer fee for his kids waived. Each campus now has a city police officer there every day--he spends most of his time at a desk in the lobby, doing paperwork or whatever on his laptop, visiting with the school staff, and goofing off with the kids. At pickup and dropoff he's outside helping with traffic flow and busting people who talk on their cell phones in the school zones.

All entrances to the schools are locked from the outside save the main lobby entrance, and to come into the school you have to walk right past this uniformed cop, state your business and show ID at the front desk. I'm the PTA president, I'm at the school daily, and I still have to jump through these hoops every time. The front desk may have a panic button like at a bank, in case an intruder shot the cop before he could respond; I don't know about that but it would be easy to implement.

This security program has almost unanimous support in our community and I do not see a downside here. Christie's comments seem to indicate total ignorance of what having trained and armed personnel at a school actually looks like in practice.

Christie is so irritating. And not at all impressive as you so beautifully show in this post dissecting what he seems to think is brilliant. He is an appeaser and not a trailblazer and problem solver. Right now his MO is to sideline everything republican and lick Obama's and Dems feet. Watch out, here comes Booker and you'll be a one time wonder, despite all your slobbering love for the Dems.

Police at schools aren't the only solution although initially, visible random visits to begin with would place some doubt in the minds of would-be shooters. In the longer term, school staff should be permitted to volunteer to carry their own concealed weapons in schools.

The problem is blue states only consider armed security as union law enforcement officers, it fit their model of graft and favoritism.

bbkingfishColumbine did have a armed guard on duty, he went AWOL as ordered once the shooting started. Seems the police needed to secure the perimeter, setup their hostage negotiating center, get their SWAT team and armored vehicles on location before confronting the shooters. "First res-ponders" my ass.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing when responding with force. Tasers that shoot the charge, sprays with a long discharge, or nonlethal bean bag guns. If I were a school teacher, I'd want some sort of defense. I'm not going to sit there like a sitting duck.

It would do more good to eliminate "gun free zones." I think that they just invite gun trouble; probably more because the very signs posted work like a double dare than because a potential attacker would be uncertain about the possibility of meeting up with a CCW.

The other, of course, is that these proposals we hear today are about preventing attacks on K-12 schools, and how many of those have there really been?

Attacks on colleges, businesses, postal facilities, and military installation are all being lumped in with Columbine and Sandy Hook to make the "problem" look impressive, but they are really different events.

Most schools in South Carolina already have armed police officers assigned to them. They are called resource officers. I thought this was common everywhere. We have not had any school shootings that I am aware of since I have been living here--about 20 years.

A quick calculation: cost of a full-time police officer -- salary, benefits, patrol car, equipment = about $100K/year. There are about 100,000 schools (excluding colleges and private schools) in the U.S. So that's $10 billion each year. School shootings killed fewer than 10 people (not all children) per year since 1980. So assuming the police officers reduce this to zero (100% effectiveness) and that 100,000 police officers manage never to shoot even 1 innocent by mistake, that would come to a billion $ per life. (This further assumes that frustrated psychos would not turn their attention to unguarded day care centers, school buses in transit, playgrounds, Chuckie Cheese franchises, theaters playing PG-rated features, etc.)

Any idea how we could spend $10B a year to save this many American children's lives some other way?

Heaven help that school. Stories like this are an example of why a lot of people (including myself) send their kids to private school. Hey Erika, I also remember you saying on another thread that one of the things you love about where you live is that if you don't want your kids to have a teacher who isn't a Christian, you can have that teacher removed. I actually don't think that's true, but how is that purge working out for you? Has that been a big part of your plan for this year's PTA agenda?

The crazy kid was able to carry the gun past the signs that said gun free zone, so obviously the problem lies in the signs not accurately designating the gun free zone, or whatever generates the gun free zone is not working at all, they should have it tested periodically to make sure that the zone generator is working.

In any case, having a trained cop at every school, or at least dropping in on a regular basis, isn't a bad idea. Bill Clinton was all about hiring more cops and that's a good use of taxpayer dollars. I'm not convinced that encouraging school staff or poorly trained rent-a-cop security guards is a good idea, however. And in a free society, soft targets will always exist.

And what will society's response be when unarmed students/individuals are getting shot mistakenly in the schools?

ken in sc, same here where I live. We already have resource officers. And in many communities the police station is already next to the high school. Some of the elementary schools are off with the cul-de-sac away from businesses. But even Sandyhook was near a fire station, it wasn't like law enforcement/rescue were never around.

One wonders if anyone outside CT would still be (or even would have started) talking about young Adam Lanza had he found himself lying in a pool of his own blood, shortly after he shot out that glass(!) door.

And consider. If you see a police vehicle parked outside a venue, is your first reaction that it's there for show, or that there's a policemen (or 2)nearby?

"...I don't necessarily think having an armed guard outside every classroom is conducive to a positive learning environment."Perhaps, but it'll be more conducive to a positive learning environment than one or more classrooms full of dead kids, don't you think?Besides, that isn't what tne NRA advocated. An armed, trained individual or rapid response team in every school would be sufficient. Oh, and take down those "No guns allowed - target rich environment" signs that worked so well at Sandy Hook Elementary, the Aurora movie theater, Virginia Tech, and the sites of every mass shooting in the last 20+ years.If the governor had been honest, he would have put a period after the word "think" when he uttered his sentence.

There is a big difference between "armed guards" and sworn police officers which is what Lapierre suggested. Police officers are highly trained officers of the law who are perceived to be an important part of the fabric of the community. That response was typical Christie which is why many of us don't trust him.

Horrible things happen everyday. When my brother died in a car accident, he was the driver. My parents were so fearful of me dying someway. I lived with their fear, and in many ways still do as an adult. Why perfectly sympathetic, it is a terrible way to live as a surviving child.

Skyler - The answer is to stop making schools gun free zones. Then people are free (I know, that's a dirty word now) to bring a weapon or not.

That would have been great for the mentally diseased monster I hope is roasting in hell now.With visitors and Freedom Lovers! like Lanza able to be free to bring a weapon or not on his visit - he wouldn't have had to stop to shoot out a window to get in!

Nobodywants to talk about whats REALLY changed in this nation, although LaPierre touched on it. It's THE CULTURE STUPID. When I was growing up in the 50s there were no drugs, most people in small towns (and not so small towns the size of a, say, Baton Rouge) kept their back doors unlocked and kids were free to dissappear all day on their bikes exploring totally out of sight and communication with their parents. Today the latter is to think the unthinkable. WHY? We ALL know the answer. The libertine lifestyle that has evolved since the 60s that the more intelligent and grounded of us are able to cope with is absolutely toxic TO ALL TOO MANY of lesser genetic make-up. It is the weakest link theory demonstrated with a vengence. Sure, all we "hip" "intelligent" types chafed under the "suffocating" sociocultural strictures of the 50s, but such societal informal strictures, it seems obvious in hindsight, were necessary for the "greater good" in the same way the pre-med star running back football star who has the discipline to study on his own at a time of his chosing nonetheless attends mandatory study hall with the rest of the "dummies" for the greater good of team cohesion and victory on the playing field.

A less all-imclusive web of societal norms was enforced by the upper class of Victorian England which may have had a liscensous life-style that was free of "middle-brow" morality, but they made sure the factories and the economy were kept humming by insisting on prudish lifestyles for the middle and working class. What we are witnessing is the result of the unfettered lifestyles of the super rich and Holloywood (Think LiLo) and the intellectual and college educated in society at large (wide-spread drug usage, etc.,) transferred to the masses. Additionally, the virtual distruction of the nuclear family by both divorce (middle & upper) or single m-mother births (lower/working) means that all sorts of young males grow up without a Father-figure i alienated from society with a sense of anomie that Emile Durkeim could only dream in his wildest dreams. Combine this with an educational system which teaches seething class warfare resentment and an entertainment industry which drenches impressionable minds with the worst kind of standards, ideas, and concepts of proper societal comportment and one has a witches brew-filled pitre-dish within which, for frustrated young males with various mental maladies and resentments, killers like the Newtown shooter emerge. NONE of todays dysfunctional sociocultural maladies existed in the 50s, or if they did were in their nacent stages such that they did not dominate society. What we are witnessing is the workings of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics with a vengance. As such, the inevitable geometric rate of decay of what, for no better term is best described as "Civilization" is apt to continue unabated. Once the cap comes off and the tube is squeezed, it's impossibkle to put the toothpaste back in the tube..

Yet, one may argue, as the philosopher Eric Voegelin once pointed out, that the material advancement of our civilization continues unabated even as we culturally retrogress. So, he asked: "Is it possible for society to simultaneously advance in one sphere while it declines in the other?" He answered his own question by saying, "yes--but not forever.."

If Althouse admired the speech by the NRA nutjob she should've said so in her post yesterday, where she offered no comment and just put a thread up to keep her traffic up.

Christie has proven himself once again to be a sane Republican, but he was critical of the NRA so he will be attacked for it by the InstaPundit crew of bloggers. IT's pretty dangerous for a Republican to criticize the NRA. Just ask the Congresswoman who saw her NRA rating nosedive simply because she thought property owners should be allowed to say they forbid people bringing guns on their property.

InstaPundit, btw, said yesterday that he didn't personally see the NRA speech but someone emailed him that LaPierre hit the ball out of the park. You mean InstaPundit didn't even read the text of the speech even though he felt his emailer was probably right that the NRA hit a home run with it? I guess that's what a propagandist does when LaPierre came off as a revolting and evil man to mainstream America. Better to not go on the record with what aspects of the speech you liked.

Anyway, Althouse got her link from InstaPundit for this. *pat on the head*

Gotta love the small government conservatives who want the government to place armed guards in every public space and school in America. Sounds like a proposal from someone advocating a police state.

But I guess it's a better proposal than Republican blogger Megan McArdle offered, which was to train our first graders to rush at a shooter and overwhelm him with 8-12 of their bodies. Oh, McArdle backtracked a little when she became a laughingstock. Now she says by "young people" she had teenagers in mind, not 6 and 7 year olds. Oh.

Christie knows he should keep his distance from the crazy that has taken hold in the GOP.

Virgil - the problem with that argument is that crime has gone down during the last two decades and is nationally at the same rate it was in the early 1960s. That is the great under reported story of America in recent years. If your theory was correct, crime wouldn't have dropped.

There's no one answer to why that's happened. Personally, I think more cops, harsher sentences and the expulsion of soft on crime rhetoric by 90s politicos like Bill Clinton and Rudy Giuliani had a lot to do with it. But the argument that America is a violent, crime-ridden hell hole now as opposed to some peaceful past era doesn't hold up. And let's not talk about crime and violence rates in the 1800s and pre-WWII 20th Century.

One area of discussion that has not come up is that elementary schools have by and large become all-female matriarchies...no men allowed to be hired because we all know that teachers are best female...as the caring nurturers they all are. Best hired instead of penis wielders - because men want to molest little kids and schools should hire for a 100% female staff for "maximum safety".

That works splendidly save in inner cities where huge chunks of the population no longer encounter good male role models at home or in school for much of their childhood. And the safety gained by excluding evil male penis possessors of the gay pederast sort - is that any Fox simply faces a little pack of clucking hens when he gets in the henhouse and begins ripping young pullet's and the hen's as well - heads off.You need roosters guarding schools and henhouses - if a Lanza shows up.

Perish the thought that children leave their school and observe armed police offers walking the streets. Their perception of an idyllic reality will surely be shattered.

Perish the thought that children listen or watch the news, for their perception of an idyllic reality will surely be shattered.

Perish the thought that children pass by a Planned Parenthood den, for the cries of children unborn and dying will surely shatter their perception of an idyllic reality. It could have been them, Nancy, Harry, Barack, or Susan.

As for the schools, the citizen "soldiers" will be undercover with a concealed carry. They will not stand guard, but will wander the halls and grounds, or they will teach, or they will administer, and observe behavior. Their presence will be advertised and act as a deterrent. Their actual presence will permit a response and constrain the damage and injury caused by a psychopath or sociopath running amuck.

somefella. I won't argue with the point about overall crime--for all the reasons you describe. What I am talking about are the sociocultutal conditions that produce alienated mass-murding middle-class largely white youth--the main profile of shooters like we are discussing. Such people were in short supply decades ago. @hy? Despite the fact one could buy mail-order guns until 1968 and JROTC students carried their rifles to school on NYC sub-ways in the 50s. MANY THINGS have changed in our culture since then and WE ALL KNOW WHAT THEY ARE. And it seems intuitively obvious without a multi-million dollar decadal-long longitudinal study that these changes readily incubate the worst sort of personality disorders into full-flower..

They are all soft targets, literally, but they are neither voluntary nor willing victims.

Reality is the mother of invention and action. There are many men and women who are both capable and willing to become citizen "soldiers", in Israel and America.

We should not intentionally lower the risk and opportunity cost to a criminal (i.e. minority interest) that is either insane, vindictive, or otherwise seeks to commit involuntary exploitation of other men, women, and children.

Virgil - what about Charles Whitman or Charles Starkweather? Or people like Billy the Kid, who now would be called a psychotic serial killer? These sorts have always been with us. The difference now is immediacy of media (and a type of celebrity) and choice of weapons.

I will be very interested in the drug-screen results from this latest shooting. The potent combination of the simultaneous use drugs and alcohol in multiple combinations by vast segments of tosay's youth (and adults too) is almost unprecedented on this planet and is, I feel, one of the main "co-morbid" (to use a medical term) factors driving much of the actions of these disturbed people..

The NRA proposal is stupid because mass school shootings are not rising and the larger problem is continuing violence in urban schools. This whole debate is based on a bullshit premise that violence is increasing. Overall, gun violence is decreasing which means we should keep doing what we're doing, and school shootings are rare enough that we can't tell whether they're increasing or not.

Gotta love the small government conservatives who want the government to place armed guards in every public space and school in America.

Anecdotally, I've found that the vast majority of "small government" conservatives are actually much better described as "limited government" conservatives. Their concern lies not so much with the size of government as it does with the scope of government. Nearly all limited government conservatives see policing and law enforcement as being well within the legitimate scope of government. Active deterrence/intervention against armed assault (without infringing the rights of individuals to defend themselves) would seem to fit within just about any "small government" conservative's scope of legitimate policing.

I read the speech by NRA’s Wayne LaPierre. His proposal is the only one that I am aware of that can stop the next gun shooting without infringing on anyone’s constitutional right including the ones defended by the ACLU. Hire one armed guard per school. No involuntary lock-up of the mentally ill, no ban on violence in movies and video games and no 20,001st ineffective gun law. And the cost is miniscule compared to all the other money being spent on education.

Can I make a suggestion as to why this easy to implement and reasonable proposal is being met with derision by the media and the rest of the Left? Because to that part of the political spectrum, it’s not about protecting children as much as it is getting rid of guns. The focus is on guns. The answer is always to ban guns. The reason is always a gun. Can’t institutionalize crazies. Can’t ban violent games or movies. Banning the sale of banana clips is the answer!

I’ll believe that they mean what they say when Bloomberg gets rid of the armed guards surrounding him.

Whitman had a brain tumor, but you're right about the fact that "these types have always been with us" but the cultural universe within which Billy the Kid types swam (and thus the shaping of their psyche) did not, I would argue, admit of such possibilities in terms of their choice of potential target populations.

Choice of weapons? You're right, but lat's face it, given the state-of-play of existing guns afloat in society (legal & illegal)banning them now only deprives law-abiding types of protection and criminalizes them while leaving true criminals free to utilize them at will. But, of course we are not talking about the criminal element here, only the mentally ill. And does one run society by exception? Do we let the mentally-ill tail wag the dog of normal society?

Road deaths are the price we pay so that we do not make commerce and social interraction impossible by limiting cars & trucks to a 15mph speed-limit--despite the observable, undeniable fact it would save tens of thousands of lives. We accept such deaths as the cost of living in a continent-wide society with vast distances to be covered. Likewise, I would argue, one does not penalize law-abiding citizens despite horrendous equivalents of 140-vehicle pile-ups as ocassionally happens in dense fog. We do not, as a result, ban cars. Remember, the farmers rifle in Revolutionary times was the "assault rifle" of its day. In fact the American pvt citizen was BETTER armed than King George's armies as they had only unrifled muskets while we had the technologically advanced and hence more accurate rifled barrel. And it was PLAINLY civilians who the Founders were thinking of. No less than a left's lefty Lawrence Tribe is on record that the 2nd Amendment applies to individuals and current weapons. Without the rifle on the mantle over the fireplace "you don't get Lexington or Concord" Tribe has written. As Katrina and the LA riots showed, such weapons are often necessary in times of national emergency to defend one's property. The VAST MAJORITY of sane, average citizens should not be deprived of their right to defend one'self and one's property because of the actions of a few..

Speaking of the across-the-board criticism by the left of the NRA proposal to place armed officers in schools, have you seen that headline from the 2000 ed of the LA times that has been dredged up which approvingly cites then President Clinton spending 120 million on grants to schools for on-campus police? It ALL depends on whose ox is being gored. Just like the "homeless" TOTALLY dissappear from the MSM radar-screen every time a Democrat is elected President only to re-emerge as a "national disgrace" the next time an Elephant is in the WH..

Althouse chose a Christie quote that suited her tag for him, "Christie rhetoric".

Had she quoted what he said in a press conference following the shootings, she might have created an even better tag for him, "Christie pragmatism".

"There are bad people and some disturbed people who lash out in ways that are absolutely incomprehensible to those of us who are good people. Law enforcement needs to be there to hold those people to account, but in the end there are some folks who, if they are intent on killing people, there's almost nothing you can do to prevent it if they're willing to give their own life in return."

One armed guard won't be enough, Columbine had one, didn't stop the shooters. Also I wouldn't trust my grandchildren's safety to rent a cop type guards paid at minimum wage. If we value our children, we need to be willing to put up or shut up. Hire veterans, thoroughly screened, pay them out of massive taxes on guns and ammo.

"Law enforcement needs to be there to hold those people to account, but in the end there are some folks who, if they are intent on killing people, there's almost nothing you can do to prevent it if they're willing to give their own life in return."

That sounds defeatist. These guys as insane as they are, also want to make a point, cause as much damage before taking their own lives. They are suicidal but also after revenge. It will not serve their purpose if there is enough counterforce that they know they will be the only one to die. They may go somewhere else but at least schools and children will be safer.

"A better approach for the NRA would be to offer free training to teachers and school personnel..."

Maybe, except that--contrary to their fearsome image as project by the MSM--the NRA isn't nearly big enough to do that. Unless you're a member yourself (and maybe not even then) you might not realize that (a) the NRA is primarily a membership organization, and (b) the NRA doesn't really do the actual individual-level training classes, it creates curricula and certifies individual teachers in their use. It's those individual NRA-certified trainers (who are not NRA employees and cannot be so directed by the NRA) who would have to decide for themselves if they were going to forego their usual course fees when training teachers--and some already do (like the above-cited Larry Correia.)

phx,

You're right about things like daycare centers, so really the obvious and only solution is a distributed one--let the law-abiding carriers carry; get rid of all the counterproductive gun-free zone stuff and let people exercise their natural right of self-defense unhindered by legislated foolishness.

Inga said...One armed guard won't be enough, Columbine had one, didn't stop the shooters. Also I wouldn't trust my grandchildren's safety to rent a cop type guards paid at minimum wage. If we value our children, we need to be willing to put up or shut up. Hire veterans, thoroughly screened, pay them out of massive taxes on guns and ammo.

My kids (High school and middle school) attend public school in Fairfax County, VA. There is an armed Fairfax Cty police officer on duty in every Fairfax County school, including the elementary schools.

When Islamist terrorists were targeting schools in Thailand the govt armed the teachers. This put an end to attacks on schools. Anders Brievik had no trouble aquiring the hardware needed to kill 77 kids in spite of Norway's much tougher gun laws. In 1989 a disgruntled patron returned to an unlicensed hispanic night club (Happyland), in the Bronx with a gallon of gas and killed almost ninety people, including children. The "gun free" zone concept is window dressing that only encourages a false sense of security. The janitor in my junior high carried a snubnosed .38 all the time at work. He would have at least provided a distraction for the killer and allowed more victims to escape

Finally, the Aurora theater shooter booby trapped his home so skillfully it the police demo pros days to render it safe to enter. Just imagine a firebomb in a theater. JB

We need to put an end to gun-free zones that have become killing zones for the disarmed and defenseless. And it is likely that just a few armed persons per school will be sufficient as long as they are anonymous.

A well crafted school security program might look like the FFDO (Federal Flight Deck Officer) program, better known as the Armed Pilots program, instituted after 9/11. It should be administered at the state and local level, but the framework could look like this:

1) Volunteers from the school staff, with a target of about 5% of the staff strength in each school. They must apply for and qualify for the state concealed carry license, and be further screened carefully. While many staff and teachers will not want to apply, there will be enough volunteers that will feel that they want to be part of the solution.

2) They provide their own weapons, specified in advance to be compatible with local police weapons, gear and accessories so that they can take advantage of local training resources.

3) They are provided training in self-defense tactics and weapon retention, with refresher courses & requalification every 3 months. Gun skills are not hard to learn and are not expensive to teach. This part of the program could be funded by the state.

4) Their identity must be kept secret, and their weapons must be kept concealed on their person or locked up at all times. They become part of the school's security team and its security plan. They reveal and use their guns only in case of imminent risk of death or grievous bodily injury, not for routine disciplinary or security work.

Note that none of this is unprecedented. Some Texas school districts have a similar policy. In addition, the State of Utah permits ALL persons with a state license to carry inside a school, including teachers and staff. There has never been a school massacre in Utah.

Yet, for whatever reason, gun control advocates froth at the mouth and call this a "crazy solution". Apparently, they think that the "national conversation about guns" really means "shut up and do what we tell you". Sorry, a conversation is a two way dialogue. Nobody should be naive. Schools are presently unprotected zones where everyone in the school is unarmed and defenseless and can be slaughtered by a criminal or crazed killer who has been guaranteed a safe working environment.

If you are talking about muzzle velocity, a bullet exiting a rifle barrel will have higher velocity than a bullet from the same cartridge exiting a pistol barrel because the rifle barrel is longer, so that the powder charge can burn more completely and expand more before the bullet is gone. In a pistol, a good part of the powder usually comes out with the bullet, especially if it is from a cartridge designed for use in a rifle.

If it is cycling rounds you are talking about, that would depend on the design of the weapon. Some actions cycle very fast, others slower. I have read that when a .45 M1911 goes full auto, which can happen with an old gun, it fires at a rate of ca. 2,400 rounds per minute which is about 3 times as fast as most submachine guns are designed to cycle. (Though, of course, the M1911 only holds 7-10 rounds.)

"It is no secret that Jews are a targeted group wherever we live. Security is second-nature for Jews, even outside of Israel. The inconveniences that come with that security are mostly taken in stride.

Our daughter’s Jewish nursery school on the Upper West Side is a happy place. Community-oriented, calm and welcoming, the school encourages an openness and acceptance that make it a wonderful place to be. But all that openness and acceptance doesn’t mean they don’t have a metal detector and a crew of security guards checking IDs and searching bags as people come in. They also have cement blocks on the sidewalk in front of the building to prevent a car from slamming into it.

The synagogue across the street from where we live also has the cement block, as well as a frequent police presence in front of it — particularly during times of services or on holidays.

Both places, and every other Jewish-affiliated organization, school and shul, must take their security this seriously. This is the way we live — and while we all wish it weren’t so, we face the truth about the world and concentrate on survival."

The high school my older siblings went to now has five police on duty at the school. They are there specifically because of black and Hispanic gangs. They don't actually do anything but collect a paycheck. Don't say that I blame them because they are in a no win situation. They end up beating or shooting one of the thugs they know where they'll end up and it won't be as Time's man of the year.

bbkingfish, actually you are not entirely correct about the guard at Columbine being ineffectual. It is believed that his presence thwarted the killers initial intention to set up propane bombs that would have had a far greater death toll.

I'll bet there's an inverse relationship between support for arming teachers and hours spent listening to Pink Floyd's "The Wall." That line "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your beets?!" packs a lot more chill if teach is packing a Glock.

The real problem with armed personnel (guards, police, treachers, whomever) at schools is that the kids will see them and their guns as proteting them... and grow up with that experience in mond. Where the anti-gun crowd wants to have people raised only to fear guns and anyone who has one, the better to disarm everyone (except their paid bodyguards).

Or, put another way, they are afraid it would work, not that it won't work.

I grew up in a small town with farms all around. During the season the Junior High and High School kids would bring fish poles and rifles to school and hunt their way home. It wasn't really all that long ago but the world was a different place. The Princeipal had an oversized closet, just for the guns and fish poles. Sometimes there were fish or small game in the school kitchen fridge from the kids hunting on the way in, although this was discouraged, not because of the guns and game but because kids got involved and were tardy.

Most schools in South Carolina already have armed police officers assigned to them. They are called resource officers. I thought this was common everywhere. We have not had any school shootings that I am aware of since I have been living here--about 20 years.